Drug War Policy and The Prison Industrial Complex

The war around the War on Drugs is a battle between public health and criminal justice. It’s a battle between conservatives calling for imprisonment and progressives calling for public health solutions. It’s the legacy of Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Nelson Rockefeller, and others, who used the fear of crime to build campaigns around law and order. While these conservative politicians were pounding the bully pulpit and demanding that every drug offender is punished, Congress was eliminating mandatory minimum sentences and mainstream public opinion considered drug addiction to be a public health problem, not an issue for the criminal courts.

The battle between public health and criminal justice began to move right with the graphic depiction of drug addicts as immoral and dangerous criminals. Rockefeller demonstrated his commitment to law and order when he crushed the Attica prison uprising, and took the lead in the War on Drugs by proposing the harshest drug laws in the country. The War on Drugs rhetoric and Rockefeller drug laws were arguing a correlation between crime and drug abuse. To further fuel the debate, the economic recession of 1973-75, saw escalating crime and the proliferation of criminal drug activity as economic alternatives. Americans wanted to solve the crime problem and believed that the enemy was drugs and all who used them. What started out as a policy to reduce drug abuse has resulted in the mass incarceration of drug addicted individuals. Public health lost the battle to treat drug abuse in 1986, with the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, and the criminalization of drug addiction.

For the past 25 years, the U.S. has pursued a drug policy based on prohibition and the application of severe criminal sanctions for the use and sale of illicit substances. Over this 25-year period, the rate at which criminal penalties have been imposed has steadily increased resulting in the United States imprisoning more of its citizens than any other industrialized nation. Furthermore, the enforcement of drug laws has not always been applied equally to all groups, despite comparable rates of drug use. African Americans are disproportionately represented among imprisoned drug offenders. The War on Drugs policy has criminalized drug addiction and resulted in mass incarceration for disadvantaged populations.

As of June 30, 1998, more than 1.8 million people were locked up in the immense network of federal, state, and local prisons and jails.(1) In total, more than 5.5 million people ‑‑ including those on probation and parole ‑‑ were directly under the surveillance of the criminal justice system.(2) Additionally, more than 60 percent of the imprisoned population are people of color.(3)

Since 1994, the disparity between white and non white prisoners as a percentage of the total prison population has widened dramatically. State prison incarceration rates for African Americans for drug law violations are almost 20 times those of whites and more than double those of Hispanics.(4) Although whites account for 69% of drug offense arrestee’s and blacks 29%, blacks are disproportionately convicted and comprise 48% of the U.S. prison population, while they are only 12.5% of the general population.(5) From 1990 to 1994, incarceration for drug offenses accounted for 60% of the increase in the black population in state prisons and 91% of the increase in Federal prisons. (6) By 1995, 35% of all African American males ages 25-34 were under the control of the criminal justice system–behind bars, on probation, or on parole. (7) In 1998, 3% of all black men were in prison on any given day.(8) And one out of three Black men aged 20 -29 were under some form of criminal justice control, which are more black men than were in college.(9) Additionally, one out of every four Black men will go to prison in his lifetime. (10)

Much of the disparity in incarceration rates can be attributed to the insidious inequality of the Mandatory Minimum Sentences (MMS) passed by Congress in 1986. Federal Mandatory Minimum Sentences are determined solely by the weight of the drug, or the presence of a firearm during a felony offense. The prisoner must serve 85% of this sentence, and there is no parole available. A judge must impose the sentence, regardless of the defendant’s role in the offense, his likelihood of rehabilitation or any other mitigating factors. Possession of 5.01 grams of crack is subject to a mandatory minimum of five years, while it takes 100 times more cocaine in powder form to receive the same MMS, despite the fact that the two drugs are similar in chemistry and physiological effects. As it happens, crack is predominately used by blacks, while powder is often used by whites.

The drug addict, who has been demonized by conservatives, is now seen as the source of many of our social ills. With the perceived escalation of crime, the War on Drugs incarceration policy has come to dominate the nation’s political agenda. However, mass incarceration is not a solution to social problems. The 1.8 million people behind bars are not the only ones affected. Many prisoners leave families, friends, employers, and communities struggling to cope with the consequences of incarceration. Furthermore, incarceration can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, resulting in a future generation of potential criminals. Children subjected to parental incarceration, financial insecurity, and a hereditary predisposition to drug abuse are far more likely to engage in criminality than others.(11) Unfortunately, the great majority of people believe imprisonment works and it is the key to winning the War on Drugs. Hence, the focus of state’s policy having shifted from social welfare to social control is endorsed by the American public.

The punitive impact of the War on Drugs policy can also be seen in the Welfare Reform Act, Section 115, where legislation has placed a lifetime ban on Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) and Food Stamp benefits for all convicted drug felons. Coincidentally, the Coalition for Federal Sentencing Reform found that more than 80% of the female prisoner population are mothers, and 70% of these are single parents. Since 1990 the annual rate of growth of the female inmate population has averaged 8.8%, higher than the 6.9% average increase in the number of male inmates.(12) By year end 1997 women accounted for 6.4% of all prisoners’ nationwide, up from 5.7% in 1990.(13)

Female incarceration rates, though substantially lower than male incarceration rates, reveal similar racial and ethnic disparities. Black females (with an incarceration rate of 188 per 100,000) were more than twice as likely as Hispanic females (78 per 100,000) and eight times more likely than white females (23 per 100,000) to be in prison in 1996. (14) Inmates at year end 1990 and 1996 reveal differences in the sources of growth between male and female inmates. During this period the number of female inmates serving time for drug offenses doubled, while the number of male inmates in for drug offenses rose 55%.(15) The number serving time for violent offenses, however, rose at about the same pace (up 57% for men and 58% for women).(16) Denying TANF benefits and food stamps to convicted drug felons imposes grave hardship on the children of these individuals and creates additional barriers to success after imprisonment. A former felon without readily marketable skills will not be able to seek immediate employment upon release. Hence, without a social safety net, this individual will have no choice but to engage in behaviors that may lead to recidivism. Women with children and inadequate means of financial support will resort to prostitution and drug dealing to provide for family essentials.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates the economic cost from alcohol and drug abuse was $276 billion in 1995.(17) Since that time there have been significant increases in expenditures to incarcerate, but not solve the social ills that lead to drug abuse. Billions of dollars are lost in productivity, tax revenues, wages, social security contributions, and lost life because our public policy leaders fail to recognize alcoholism and addiction for what they are, chronic diseases. The prevalence of drug abuse has created a public health and social community crisis. Responding with incarceration does not treat the problem, it only compounds it. The 1994 California Drug and Alcohol Treatment Assessment, General Report, found that every dollar spent on addiction treatment saves taxpayers more than $7 in medical and social costs.(18) However, we continue to pursue an extraordinarily expensive policy of criminal justice at the expense of alternative social solutions.

Drug enforcement activities cost more than $20 billion per year in state and local law enforcement and constitute 68% of the $17 billion Federal drug budget, compared with the $5.5 billion in treatment, prevention and research. (19) The cost of drug enforcement is 50% larger than the entire federal welfare budget of $16.6 billion, which provides income supports for 8.5 million people.(20) And represents six times what the federal government will spend on child care for 1.25 million children.

The most visible part of the War on Drugs is the development of the Prison Industrial Complex. Short of war, mass incarceration has been one of the most thoroughly implemented social programs of our time. The dramatic increase in funding for prison expansion and criminal justice has come at the expense of education. From 1987 to 1995, general fund expenditures for prisons throughout the country increased by 30% while general fund expenditures for universities decreased by 18%. (21) In 1995, the National Crime Bill was passed, resulting in the construction of 150 new prisons and the expansion of 171 existing prisons.(22) States around the country spent more building prisons than colleges and there was nearly a dollar for dollar tradeoff between corrections and higher education, with university construction funds decreasing to 2.5 billion while corrections funding increased to 2.6 billion.(23)

Since 1984 more than 20 new prisons have opened in California, while only one new campus was added to the California State University system and none to the University of California system.(24) For the first time in California’s state history the 1995 budget allocated more money for prisons than education. Today, California plans to add six new prisons to its existing 32, and it is estimated that an additional 11 will be required over the next five years just to maintain the current level of overcrowding.(25) According to the California Department of Corrections, it currently costs $22,000 to imprison one inmate for one year. With an annual average cost of $4,022 in tuition fees for attendance at the University of California, the housing of one inmate precludes five students from obtaining higher education. The minimum period of incarceration for inmates sentenced to 25 to life under California’s “Three Strikes” law is 21.75 years (85% of the minimum sentence). This means that, in 1998 dollars, a defendant sentenced to life will cost a minimum of $467,500. The current population of California inmates serving life under “Three Strikes” is 4,318 at a cost of $95 million for one year.(26) The state could send a number of students to UC or California State University for that same amount and quite possible find alternative solutions to our various social ills.

Interestingly, prisons and universities have the same target audience, young adults. Though unlike universities, 70% of prisoners nationwide have not completed high school, and more than 50% are illiterate. (27) At present, five times as many black men are presently in prison as in four‑year colleges and universities. The War on Drugs promotion of incarceration has not only affected funding for education, but has inadvertently created a population in grave need of learning and skill development. The War on Drugs and resultant prison industrial system has devoured the social wealth needed to address the very problems that have led to spiraling numbers of prisoners. As prisons take up more and more resources, other government programs that have previously sought to respond to social needs ‑‑ such as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families ‑‑ are being squeezed out of existence. The deterioration of public education is directly related to the prison “solution.”

Drug abuse is a problem with many social ramifications. There are 26 million Americans who abuse or are addicted to drugs and alcohol.(28) There are 10.5 million victims of drug related crimes each year.(29) There are 700,000 infants exposed in utero to illicit drugs each year.(30) There are 132,000 premature deaths as a consequence of drug and alcohol problems.(31) Drug abuse is a problem. Addiction is a disease with bio-psycho-social causes(32), whose prevalence has created a social crisis. However, the solution is not to lock them up and throw away the key.

People who support incarceration, vote for new prison bonds and give their tacit assent to a proliferating network of prisons and jails. But prisons do not solve social problems. Without addressing the underlying social issue, a burgeoning penal infrastructure will continue to grow in order to accommodate an exponentially increasing population of caged people. However, the economics of the private prison industry are in many respects similar to those of the lodging industry. An inmate at a private prison is like a guest at a hotel and the economic incentive is to book every available room and encourage every guest to stay as long as possible. (33)

Prisons are becoming increasingly important to the U.S. economy. Prison privatization is the most obvious example of opportunistic capitalism in the current development of the prison industry. Prison Realty Trust (PZN), the largest private prison company in the U.S., builds and manages prisons in Australia, Puerto Rico, the U.K., and the U.S. It owns 50 prisons, 49 in the U.S., and it manages more than 70,000 prison beds in more than 80 facilities. The company recently identified California as its “new frontier.”(34) Wackenhut Corrections Corporation (WHC), the second largest developer and operator of private prisons in the U.S., has contracts to manage more than 40 facilities in the U.S., the U.K., and Australia. It boasts more than 30,000 beds as well as contracts for prisoner healthcare services, transportation and security.(35) Currently, the stocks of both PZN and WHC publicly trade on the New York Stock Exchange and are doing extremely well. Between 1996 and 1998, PZN’s revenues increased by 126 percent, from $293 million to $662 million. WHC raised its revenues from $138 million in 1996 to $313 million in 1998. Unlike public correctional facilities, the vast profits of these private facilities rely, in part, on the employment of prison labor. But PZN and WHC are not alone in exploiting the burgeoning new industry of prison privatization. When an offender enters a California prison, he is surveyed for more than 50 skills and placed in a facility with targeted skill needs according to his ability. Corporations ranging from J.C. Penny and Victoria’s Secret to IBM and Toys R Us utilize prison labor to cut costs and increase profits.

Private prison companies are only the most visible component of the increasing corporatization of punishment. Government contracts to build prisons have bolstered the construction industry. The architectural community has identified prison design as a major new niche. Technology developed for the military, such as “Night Enforcer” goggles and “Hot Wire” fencing, by companies like Westinghouse are being marketed for use in law enforcement and punishment. Moreover, corporations that appear to be far removed from the business of punishment are intimately involved in the expansion of the prison industrial complex. Prison construction bonds are one of the many sources of profitable investment for leading financiers such as Merrill Lynch. MCI charges prisoners and their families outrageous prices for telephone calls by adding a $3.00 surcharge to every call.(36) A pay phone at a prison can generate as much as $15,000 per year.(37) The business is so lucrative that MCI installed its inmate phone system, Maximum Security, throughout the California prison system at no charge. (38) As part of the deal MCI provides the California Department of Corrections a 32% share of all revenues from inmates’ phone calls.(39)

Financiers and high‑tech industries are not the only ones reaping profits from incarceration. Nordstrom’s department stores sell jeans that are marketed as “Prison Blues,” as well as T‑shirts and jackets made in Oregon prisons. The advertising slogan for these clothes is “made on the inside to be worn on the outside.” Maryland prisoners inspect glass bottles and jars used by Revlon and Pierre Cardin, and schools throughout the world buy graduation caps and gowns made for Jostens by South Carolina prisoners.(40)

“For private business,” writes Eve Goldberg and Linda Evans “prison labor is like a pot of gold. No strikes. No union organizing. No health benefits, unemployment insurance, or workers’ compensation to pay. No language barriers, as in foreign countries. Prisoners do data entry for Chevron, make telephone reservations for TWA, raise hogs, shovel manure, make circuit boards, limousines, waterbeds and lingerie for Victoria’s Secret ‑‑ all at a fraction of the cost of ‘free labor.’ ” (41)

Although prison labor is quite profitable for the private companies that use it, incarceration does not produce wealth for the public sector. On the contrary, it devours wealth that could be used for education, drug rehabilitation, programs to combat HIV, child care, housing, and job creation for the unemployed.

The Prison Industrial Complex is an interweaving of private business and government interests. Private capital has become enmeshed in the punishment industry. Although the primary purpose of prisons is social control and the public rationale is the fight against crime, the results are clearly profit on the backs of disadvantaged populations

Reframing the War on Drugs policy to a national public health policy on substance abuse treatment would not only reduce costs and improve national health, but also make our communities safer, lower taxes, improve workplace productivity and reduce health care costs. Addiction is a disease, not a moral failing. Addiction is primarily a health care problem with criminal justice implications. It is not primarily a criminal justice problem with healthcare implications. We need to get the relationship straight. Treatment is the most effective way to reduce drug and alcohol addiction, and dramatically reduce drug and alcohol related crime and health care costs. Treatment cuts health care costs. Treatment improves economic welfare. Treatment is cheaper than enforcement, prosecution and incarceration.

Three decades after the War on Drugs began, we have developed a prison industrial complex, with seemingly unstoppable momentum. The line between public interest and private interest has blurred. The crackdown on drugs has not stopped drug use, but it has taken thousands of unemployed and potentially angry young men and women off of the streets and has created a growing prison population and new industrial complex. Our failure to spend on relatively inexpensive measures, such as drug treatment and probation, has forced us to increase spending on prisons. However, as criminal justice increasingly devours social resources it does not add to social wealth. Building more prisons to address drug abuse is like building more graveyards to deal with a fatal disease.

We need to treat the cause of drug abuse through public health and reinstate social resources to combat the risk factors leading to abuse. The goal is simple, to reduce drug abuse and the constellation of associated problems and costs. We can achieve this goal through a continuum of health care services orchestrated by a Public Health Addictions Policy.

Gorski, Terence. Public Health Addiction Policy – an alternative To The War On Drugs, available on the internet http://www.tgorski.com

Dept. Of Health and Human Services, National Institute of Drug Abuse. Economic Costs of Substance Abuse 1995. National Institute of Health Publication Number 98-4327 (Rockville, MD, 9/98); available from http://www.nida.nih.gov/EconomicCosts/Index.html ;Internet

Dept. Of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Correctional Populations in the United States, 1998. Prepared by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (Rockville, MD, 4/99) NCJ 170013; available from http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/cpius96.htm ; Internet.

I’m a drug user activist from Australia. First I wanted to thank you for your thoughtful and insightful piece on the WoD and the Prison Industrial Complex. We need more people like you writing publicly on such topics. Exposing the current drug control policy approach in the US and globally for what it is – an excuse for countless private companies to make untold profits at the expense of the basic human rights (and even the lives) of some of the most marginalised in our community is desperately needed.

Having said that, there are two points of concern I would like to raise and even discuss with you further should you be interested. The first issue relates to your use of certain language in relation to people who use illicit drugs. I am a founding member of both the Australian and International networks of people who use drugs and as a global movement we are increasingly trying to highlight the ongoing and very damaging stereotypes that are perpetuated by the use of certain language to describe people who use drugs such as “drug addicts”, “drug addiction”, “drug abuse”, “drug abusers”, etc. We believe the use of such language is highly problematic because it is by its nature clinically imprecise (a discussion I am happy to explore with you further) but has also become so imbued with political and moral dimensions that its use can only stigmatise and pathologise drug users further. Unlike the term “drug addiction”, the term ‘drug dependency’ is a condition with clearly definable physical, psychological and behavioural characteristics. The term ‘drug abuse’ is equally imprecise and filled with moralistic overtones of someone who is ‘out of control’ and therefore potentially dangerous the the rest of society. In contrast, the term ‘drug use’ is more morally and politically neutral with clearly defined clinical, behavioural and/or social dimensions and therefore works to subvert the dominant (largely) hysterical discourse in relation to illicit drug use and the people who use them.

The other issue I wanted to raise with you relates to the concept of the choice being between dealing with illicit drug use as a public health rather than a criminal issue. While I would completely agree we must end the criminalisation of people who use illicit drugs, i do not agree that our only option is to treat the use of drugs as a public health issue. Given that health services for ‘treating’ drug use and/or dependence issues are frequently highly punitive in nature (particularly but not only in developing countries – with so-called ‘health’ and ‘treatment’ services being about private profit making, forced labour, abuse and violence) we would argue that we need to approach drug use fundamentally as a human rights issue with a public health dimension rather than a public health issue per se.

Let me finish by saying that despite the above issues, I found your blog on the above issue both compelling and inspirational. I look forward to reading future blogs from you on this and related topics.